Thought on Comments4kids Week 4

I read Austin's blog from Mrs. Cassidy's first grade class. He told his Dad that he loved him. Mrs. Cassidy is using blogging as a literacy tool. Many times, children are enthusiastic about using technology and this can be a great way to motivate students.

Thoughts on "What I've learned this Year"

According to Harry Wong, author of my classroom management textbook The First Days of School, three characteristics of an effective classroom teacher are: classroom management, teaching for mastery and positive expectations. Mr McClung is right in reminding new teachers not to "become upset when they (the students) do not meet the expectation". We should set goals high enough for challenge and success.
I'm grateful for the reminder not to worry so much about my lesson plan, but focus on my students. Mr. McClung stated, "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT" and "in order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction." My students need me to listen to them and help them achieve, not just carry out the lesson plan.
Very soon, when I am standing in a classroom full of students and it is my job to be their teacher, I am going to try to remember that I am "performing in front of a crowd that struggles remembering what they brought for lunch that day" and try not to be nervous. Smile.

Thought on "Wikipedia Scanner"

According to an NPR article posted August 16, 2007, "Wikipedia calls itself 'the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,' which is another way of saying it is not fact-checked. Or spin-checked, for that matter." Anyone can edit, add, or delete information posted on Wikipedia and do so anonymously. However, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, Virgil Griffith, has created a tool to track the location of changes made to Wikipedia. It is called the Wikipedia Scanner.
A Wired article, by John Borland, said that Griffith created the scanner because he became curious about Wikipedia edits when it was reported that "congress members 'offices had been editing their own entries" and he "wanted to know whether big companies and other organizations were doing things in a similarly self-interested vein." NPR and Wired noted several companies' Wikipedia articles which had been edited from computers owned by those companies.
I wonder if, since everyone knows that information can be edited or even deleted from Wikipedia, it is important to know the source of edits. What if the original content was erroneous? Are we just as interested in the source of information posted to harm an image?
I think it is also important to remember that the use of terminology and adjectives is subjective to the perspective of the individual providing the information. Subject matter should be considered when using Wikipedia because, as NPR stated, "the company or the band you're researching is likely to have enhanced or polished its Wikipedia image" or negative information could also be posted by someone who has opposing views.
Additional article

Thoughts on Comments4Kids Week 4

Allyas posted a very pretty pattern on her post for Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog. Posting art work and examples of kindergarten and first grade work would be a very effective way to get children and even parents familiar with blogging as a teaching tool.

Learning about FDR in Warm Springs, GA

Thoughts on "Randy Pausch's Last Lecture"

Mr. Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and that is where he delivered his last lecture. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just one month before and had been told he had only three to six months of healthy life. He told his story of fulfilling his childhood dreams and enabling others to fulfill theirs. I discovered he lived longer than the doctors had expected, but still passed very young at the age of forty-eight. His last speech was one of the most inspirational speeches I have ever heard. At the end, he told his audience that the speech was not for them, but for his children. I enjoy bits of information to remember and below are a few of some of the wonderful things he had to say.

"Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us show our dedication and prove how badly we want things."
"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."
"Millions of kids are having fun while learning something hard. That's pretty cool"
"The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they are learning something else." = "head fake"
"You just have to decide if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore."
"When you do the right thing, good things have a way of happening."
"Be good at something, it makes you valuable."
"Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity."
"Find the best in everybody: no matter how long you have to wait for them to show it."
"Never loose the child like wonder. It's too important. It's what drives us."

If you would like to hear some very encouraging words to brighten your day, you can click the link below to watch the entire speech
RANDY PAUSCH'S LAST LECTURE

Thoughts on Comments4Kids Week 3

I read a story about how Cassi got her pet bunny. I'm not sure if it was fiction or not. She included lots of details about the days leading up to her father bringing a bunny home to her and her sister. Her story was categorized as Student Writing. I think her teacher, Mr. Goerend, uses technology for many different purposes, including student writing, notes to parents, and helpful tips and websites for students to use.Cassi's Post

Thoughts on "Did You Know? 4.0"

Wow! According to Did You Know 4.0, the average American teen sends 2,272 text messages every month. Each generation finds ways to use technology for its advantage and is becoming more and more comfortable using it for communication and research. As educators, we should take advantage of this swiftly advancing media and use its many parts as teaching tools.

Thoughts on the "Beasley Broadcast" Week 3

The Beasley Broadcast, produced by the students of the RBS 4th Grade, is very interesting. The students sound so excited to be a part of the product. They covered interesting topics that would appeal to students of all grade levels at their school. I also loved hearing the students' reactions to comments made on their blogs. Their excitement is compelling. This is a useful and practical way to use podcasts in the elementary classroom.

Thoughts on "Is it Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" by Karl Fisch

Mr. Karl Fisch has a very passionate opinion, that "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." I tend to agree with mferrill who said in a comment "My point is not that teachers shouldn’t make the effort to use technology, but teachers can still be effective using other tools. And don’t worry—the technology will take care of itself. Younger teachers have grown up with it so they will incorporate it into their lessons naturally."
I'm a non-traditional student and ,unlike my younger college classmates, I have not been using all the social networks and other tools of technology in my own life. EDM310 has been an eye opener and a wonderful challenge for me. Just as mferrill commented, as new teachers like myself go into the classrooms, they will take the technologies they have learned and incorporate them as teaching tools.

Thoughts on "It's not about the Technology" by Kelly Hines

I really enjoyed Ms. Hines' article. I agree that technology for the sake of just using some type of technology might not be most effective. When technology is used as a tool for teaching or as motivation, it's much more valuable.
I agree with Ms. Hines that, "Technology is useless without good teaching". I believe it takes a good teacher to effectively use technology as a tool and not just something else to do in the classroom. I hope to be an effective teacher. I plan to use technology as a tool to help my students advance, comprehend, create, and succeed. Through this class, the assignments given, and the links I follow in them, I am finding many resources for ways to teach creatively. I enjoyed the comments made and the links given. I followed a few and found much more information with which I agreed.

Thoughts on "A Vision of Students Today"

I graduated from high school twenty years ago. My life has involved being wife and mother for the past seventeen and half years. Windows 95 was coming out when I left my job as a secretary to stay at home with our children. I didn't have a cell phone till about the middle of 2001. I learned and did fairly well in what is now considered the old fashioned schools.
Students today are growing up with all these technologies before them and they expect information to be presented this way and, in fact, they react and absorb it better. I believe that some children may benefit a great deal from having most information presented in a moving and interactive format. Does this mean that everything about our educational system needs to be restructured? I am at a loss for what should be done about all the issues presented in this video.

Thoughts on "Podcasting in the Classroom"

Having students perform the dialogue as the voices of a novel seems to be a great motivator for literacy and subject content. When podcasts are project based, children use higher level thinking skills from Bloom's Taxonomy to prepare their presentation. As the Principal Christie Forrest of Douglas Wilder Middle School mentioned, podcasting offers "an opportunity for parents to communicate and see what's going on in the classroom. They have an actual audio clip of class work and parents always appreciate hearing about what's going on in the classroom." I appreciate that the creator of this vodcast included the addresses of tutorials where others could learn to produce podcasts.

Thoughts on Mr. Needleman's skype call

I learned so much from Mr. Needleman's call. I would love to know his procedure or lesson plan for producing a movie in a kindergarten, first or second grade class. How did he do it?
I plan to investigate Classroom 2.0. I hope to use the ideas of these creative teachers!

Thoughts on creating a presentation in Google Docs

I found Google Docs to be very "user friendly". I had been told that using it to create a presentation was like using Power Point. Having never used Power Point, either, I thought I would have a difficult time. But, I found Google's tools were easy to understand and use! I am so glad!

Thoughts on posting to "comments4kids" Week 1

Surely having college students around the world commenting on your post about your summer reading book would be a great motivator for those students who love to use technology. I enjoyed reading the students assessment of their books. Each child seemed to have a very different perspective of the same story.

Thoughts on "The Tech Literate Teacher"

I enjoyed watching the "Tech Literate Teacher" podcast from the summer class of EDM310. The discussion reaffirmed for me the purpose of this class. I knew I was going to be learning about technology, but really did not realize that there were so many different resources available. I also did not realize that technology could be used in so many as teaching tools.
The only change that I would consider making to the podcast would be to let each person bring a different idea or subtopic to the table. Each person could take turns introducing their question or facts for discussion.